Fee shortfall threatens Illinois system of physician discipline

Friday

Dec 28, 2012 at 12:01 AMDec 28, 2012 at 9:16 AM

SPRINGFIELD -- Investigations into suspected misconduct by doctors could be delayed for months if the Illinois General Assembly fails to raise fees on the medical profession, a state agency spokeswoman said Thursday.

DEAN OLSEN

SPRINGFIELD -- Investigations into suspected misconduct by doctors could be delayed for months if the Illinois General Assembly fails to raise fees on the medical profession, a state agency spokeswoman said Thursday.

More than half of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation’s 26-member medical unit will be eliminated Jan. 15 if legislative action isn’t taken by then to alleviate a $6 million funding crunch, spokeswoman Susan Hofer said.

“We are out of money as of the end of this month,” she said.

Laying off 18 state workers and more than doubling the workload on the remaining staff would lead to delays of weeks or months in issuance or renewals of state licenses for doctors, Hofer said.

Such delays could mean that hundreds of doctors scheduled to graduate from medical schools in 2013 couldn’t begin specialty training on schedule because they wouldn’t have Illinois licenses in hand, she said.

Waiting on fee deal

Until now, the General Assembly has been waiting for the administration of Gov. Pat Quinn to come to an agreement on a fee increase with groups that represent physicians, according to state Rep. Michael Zalewski, D-Riverside.

Zalewski said he hopes a bill resolving the issue can be passed during the lame-duck session in early January. If not, lawmakers probably won’t take up the issue at least until February, he said.

“It’s been made clear to both the General Assembly, the governor’s office and the profession that there’s a substantial shortfall,” said Zalewski, chairman of the House Health Care Licenses Committee. “It’s hard to say whether this issue will be addressed. There’s definitely urgency.”

The medical unit, like all other parts of Financial and Professional Regulation, is funded solely through licensing fees.

Illinois doctors pay for renewals that last three years. The effective annual fee to obtain or renew a state license is $100, an amount that hasn’t changed since 1987.

The medical unit is operating with a “structural deficit” of $6 million, Hofer said.

“We are spending more to discipline and regulate physicians than we are taking in,” she said.

Concerned about ‘sweeps’

The legislature in recent years has required the medical unit to maintain an online public database of physician profiles, approve “chaperones” for doctors accused of sex crimes and revoke the medical licenses of convicted sex offenders, Hofer said, but without appropriating any additional money to handle those duties.

The $100 fee may need to be at least doubled, though it’s possible that could be done over a multiple-year phase-in period, Zalewski said. But the Illinois State Medical Society worries that any increases could generate money for the General Assembly to “sweep” and use elsewhere in state government, he said.

The last such sweep took $8.9 million from the medical unit’s fund in 2004, during the first term of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

That money should be restored, medical society president Dr. William Werner said in a statement Thursday.

Quinn hasn’t authorized any sweeps and doesn’t plan to do so in the future, Hofer said.

The medical unit investigates complaints involving any of the 45,800 doctors registered with the state. The unit also monitors the conduct of doctors who have been disciplined in the past, processes paperwork and oversees physician discipline. Between 200 and 300 doctors are disciplined each year.

The department has been trying to get the General Assembly to increase the licensing fee since 1997, Hofer said.

She noted that Illinois lawyers pay $342 a year to renew their licenses. Acupuncturists pay $250, and optometrists pay $200. Plumbers pay the same amount as doctors.

Annual license fees for doctors are higher in many other states, such as Texas ($404), California ($392), New York ($300), Iowa ($220), Ohio ($152), Kentucky ($150), Missouri ($135) and Wisconsin ($120), according to Hofer.

Dean Olsen can be reached at (217) 788-1543. Follow him at twitter.com/DeanOlsenSJR.

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